Twitter announced Tuesday that it is adding new tools to its website that will make it easier to report incidents of online harassment.
Users will now have more options to describe the kind of abuse they see, whether it'd be name calling or violent threats, and observers will be able to report coordinated attacks against an individual user more efficiently, according to The Washington Post.
A new "blocked accounts" page will give users a chance to see followers they've decided to stop interacting with in the past so they don't have to try to remember the follower's name after blocking them in order to report abuse. This page can be used for different purposes, such as having a reference point for reporting harassment or unblocking someone if there is no longer an issue between users.
The introduction of the new tools is a response to numerous cases involving foul language and threats of rape or death made on Twitter, as well as the service's declining use, The New York Times reported.
The company's current policy states that accounts reported for abuse will be reviewed by a person on the Twitter safety team, and accounts will be shut down if they violate the company's terms of service. However, users that are reported for abuse are still able to create new accounts, and Twitter intends to deal with this issue, as well as impersonation on the website.
Twitter said in an official blog post that it will continue to make changes to the blocked accounts page in upcoming years, The Washington Post reported. Del Harvey, head of trust and safety at Twitter, said the company will be introducing more tools in the future to help users make their accounts safer.
"This is not us saying, 'Well, we've done these things, so nothing bad will happen on the Internet now.' And this is not us trying to sprain our arms while trying to pat ourselves on the back," Harvey said. "We want to say to people that we are working to improve on this stuff."
She also addressed concerns of free speech, saying that Twitter will make it harder for abuse to take place while making sure users aren't restricted in the content they can post. Helping individual users customize their safety settings is the main idea for these new tools.
"I think one of the biggest components of our philosophy around that is we want users to have control over their experience," Harvey said. "The whole idea of having a blocked accounts page means you can go back and make changes if you want to. You have control as a user."
